The Crack Baby Athletic Association (CBAA)

I finally got around to watching the Crack Baby Athletic Association South Park episode over the weekend. It was funny in so many ways, but also so sad whenever you actually think to yourself, “this sort of reminds me of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s practices.” But that’s the power of parody. The parody also does a mighty fine job of making you feel all warm inside about EA Sports. And the jokes about Denny’s Baconalia and Slash are the cherries on top.

Memorable lines from the episode include,

“We have a constant flow of athletes that never dries up. And best of all, it’s all charity, so it’s tax free.”

“Crack baby players can’t make a salary based on the rules…I don’t make the rules ma’am, I just think them up and write them down.” – Cartman

“Ma’am the Crack Baby Athletic Association is a storied franchise. It was founded over 12 days ago with a firm ethical code that strictly states benefits to players is detrimentalized to their well being. I cannot offer you or your child any cash. I can, however, offer you a little bit of crack.” – Cartman

“Just because we are making money doesn’t mean that those babies aren’t benefiting. It isn’t exploiting them, they’re finding a useful place in society. What is unethical about that?” – Kyle

“We’re a non-profit company Kyle.” “So then where did the $800 we made from selling an internet ad to Payless ShoeSource go?” “To things we need to keep the office running, Kyle!” – They then sit in a hot tub full of KFC gravy.

“Now when we sell their likeness for video games, how do we get around paying our slaves…student-athletes then?” – Cartman

“I ain’t arguing. If they got paid then how would we make all that money, right?” – Cartman

The episode is hilarious. I brought up the discussion of whether student-athletes should be allowed to receive benefits because of everything they do for their universities to one of my friends who is trying to walk on at Auburn and he was completely against the idea. He claims that most of the players are just given money from coaches or people within the university and they call it “weekend expenses” but it may be as much as 300-500 dollars for just one weekend. There is also the obvious benefit of athletic scholarships but it really does seem to me that college athletics have become a type of slave labor in the way the universities and other companies make money off of these kids and if they never make it to the pros then they are never really compensated for what they did for their schools. Do you feel that players receive enough benefits as it is or that this is a real problem in college athletics?